Tag Archives: United States Marine Corps

My oldest child is 30, and I don’t think there has been one moment in his lifetime whe I wasn’t on a weight loss diet or doing some fitness routine or both. I remember back in cave man days when we didn’t have VCRs and one had to exercise with Jack Lalanne or do exercises from a book; I would wake up at 4 am to get a workout in (yes seriously, from a book!) before heading to work.

I had my two oldest while I was in the Marine Corps and in each case I had 4 – 6 weeks to get back into that uniform and in good enough shape to pass a PFT (physical fitness test). After the birth of my first I waited one week or whatever it was and headed home to Mommy with baby in tow. She would promptly put me on a diet and I would get up every morning and run around Holy Cross Cemetery (Beverly to Schenectady, over to Snyder and down to Brooklyn Ave and back to Avenue D) at least once. I remember that about a year after my second child was born I weighed 128lbs, I was of course disgusted and went on the very restrictive Hamptons Diet and wore one of those rubber things around my waist under my uniforms (well my cammies anyway).

As you can probably guess, I have been alternating between avoiding food altogether and bingeing on the foods I love. That is just tiresome and now that it’s fall I am ready for some good eats – creamy soups, halloween candy, Thanksgiving dinner, and all those Christmas cakes, cookies and candies. This year I am armed with a product called Cheat (read about it for yourself here) and a determination to not deny myself anything while I eat just enough to satisfy the craving.

Today I made one of my favorite desserts (it probably cost less than $3, that’s why I say “cheap”), you can fancy it up for family gatherings by adding sour cream to the cream cheese, and topping with fruit. I also considered putting caramel in the bottom before the filling, and maybe some on top after chilling:

Chain 58 st and join with slip st to first st. Row 1: Hdc in each st Row 2: 1 sc and 1 dc in same st, skip 1 st ,repeat. Row 3: 1 sc in each st worked in the back loop only Row 2 and 3 is the pattern stich. Continue pattern stitch until the work measures 14.5 cm (I did som increases in the beginning, but I think it would be better not to do it, my hat got a little bigger after wearing it a few times. Maybe I even should have started with less stitches).

When the hat measures 14.5 cm, stop the stitch pattern, and start crocheting sc in each st round and round (I am too lazy to join each round, so I just go round and round!). I did this until I felt the hat was long enough (not very informative, I know..), and started decreasing. I think this is how I did it: